THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 1-27-02: DOCUMENT

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 1-27-02: DOCUMENT; America at War in Five Letters

Published: January 27, 2002

The letters shown here, sent to and from the front lines, offer an intimate record of our country at war. It used to be that war letters themselves -- like the bloodstained missives of Union and Confederate soldiers -- revealed something of the fury of battle, but as e-mail replaces the handwritten word, our correspondence has become less formal and more detached. This selection of letters from the 19th century to the present is a vivid reminder of the anxieties of those who serve and the sacrifices that war demands.

Civil War, Feb. 14, 1863

In this Valentine's Day missive, a Confederate soldier's wife implored her husband, ''O do try and take care of your self so that you will live to come home.'' After the fighting at Chancellorsville, a Union soldier took this bloodstained letter from the dead husband and kept it as a souvenir, not uncommon at the time.

Vietnam, March 1967

A young soldier, ''just another private,'' as he called himself, sent a friend

back home caustic, watercolored letters decorated with pop-culture cutouts and slogans like ''War Is Good -- Invest Your Son!'' A superintendent's wife discovered a stack of them in a Dumpster in San Diego decades later.

World War II, Sept. 12, 1945

Purchased at a yard sale in 1982 for less than $1, this letter was written by a medic at the bedside of Gen. Hideki Tojo, Japan's premier, who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor. (He had attempted suicide the day before.) Ambivalent about tending to Tojo, the medic wrote, ''It's funny to be taking care of some one, & not knowing whether you want him to live or not.'' Tojo recovered but was later hanged for war crimes.

World War II, Jan. 16, 1945

Captured by the Japanese in 1942 and incarcerated on a P.O.W. ship, Lt. Tommie Kennedy knew he wouldn't survive much longer. On the back of family photographs, in careful script, he penciled a farewell message.

Before dying, he gave the pictures to another P.O.W., who sent them to Kennedy's parents after the war. They hadn't heard from their son in four years.

War Against Terrorism, Dec. 16, 2001

Writing aboard the U.S.S. Russell four days after rescuing four men whose B-1 bomber crashed into the Indian Ocean, Robert Hein Jr., 36, discreetly alludes to the incident in an e-mail message to his father, who served in Vietnam. His letter is at once evasive and coy: ''Discretion is my guide,'' he explains.